They played for the sake of play alone, and their only concern was the ultimate evolution of their game.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Drinking out of four cups. And holding my own hand.

I have been up and out of the house, more often than not, since 0500 this morning. And now, 10 hours later, it is only 1500 and I still have hours of work to do, but I can at least do it lying here, with the laptop. My eyes are gritty and I felt a stupid sense of loss that there is nothing to read, nothing for me to refresh and refresh and refresh. Email is still 'vacationed' off as well. And it is *quiet*. But, as I assumed it would, it has made making other things a priority easier. There is much to catch up on and I have continually denied myself breaks and time outs, when I needed them. There are practical reasons that has occurred, of course, given my change in habits; and then there are some less than practical reasons: some inner tyrant compels me to wear myself to a frazzle, to justify my existence with continuous action.

Compulsion! *Me*, darlings!

I am giving myself some time off for good behavior, with an emphasis on feeling rather than doing. The weekend, at the least of it, has finally opened me up to that. The racking sobs of despair that have come forth then, and then again today, have not been for nothing.

Thank the gods, but for the time being, I've remembered what it is like to not expect anything particular from myself -- to not try to produce anything. Aspyre correctly named this confusing and ensnaring wall I have been feeling as my trying to force the manifestation. And i hated to realize she was right. And I hated that there can be no answer other than I have indeed forgotten and remembered and forgotten and remembered and forgotten *again* something so simple.

If I don't retire willingly -- as an act of personal choice -- downtime will undoubtedly be imposed upon me by some kind of setback. Assuming that hasn't happened already, which it may have: I have lost my ability to understand, today, how A got to B, and my role in that journey. Or maybe I have lost the ability to understand that I *have* no role in that.

Fortunately, I *have* retained my ability to remember *this*:

All you ever have to do, darlings, to change absolutely everything, is think differently.

Though it did me good to read that again -- to read all of that July again -- because it reminded me that I do sometimes forget to see.

And that re-reading just may have answered my question about my role -- I forget that what is obvious to me and to many many others is not obvious to everyone and maybe the expected answer was simply "taking a break; will talk later". Really, some people do need just that as an answer, don't they, when asking what's going on?

I just figured it, you know, meant *more*. Like, you know, what's going *on*. And this is less comment to you than comment to myself but, hey, Thank You for prompting me to think of it.

"I am the seasoned traveler
Of the Labyrinth.
The genius of alacrity,
Wizard of the impossible.
My brilliance is yet unmatched
In its originality.
My heart's filled with potent magic
That could cast a hundred spells.
I am put together
For mine own pleasure.

I am the Monkey."

Seems pretty apt.

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"My friend, every sorceress is a pragmatist at heart; nobody sees essence who can't face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you

I could hold you prisoner." -- Circe's Power, Louise Gluck

"My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams -- like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves." -- Demian, Hermann Hesse

"The Muses are vindictive deities: they avenge themselves without mercy on those who weary of their charms." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

THE RULES: As a general rule, and most of you already know this, I prefer annonymous comments on this blog. Here is where I like to talk more "idea to idea" than person to person. I've got another journal wherein I get all personally chatty, but here I like the idea of ideas being separate from the contructs/biases/"personalities" behind them. Because those things color us all, don't they? Anyway, it's not a hard and fast rule, so feel free to comment however you like. Caro can never help giving herself away and, of course, Aspyre is always welcome to comment with identity because when Ladarna and Aspyre talk, it has always been idea to idea anyway. :)